In recognition of the release of the ninth-annual Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index (PSI) study, which measures the responsiveness of more than 6,000 dealers using data from mystery shoppers, we ask you this: What if a mystery shopper filed a report on your dealership and its employees? What do you think it might say? Of course, the really good mystery shoppers aren’t readily picked out by your employees, but they’ve been trained to notice many things – good and bad – about your dealership, and to record everything with complete impartiality.

Mystery Shopper Study Details

The PSI study measures overall brands, and if you’re really interested you can click on the link above and see which brands excelled. But what should be of much more significance to you is the thought of what’s happening at your dealership!

The study takes more than 50 factors into account, but the most important ones are whether salespeople encouraged shoppers to review numbers; whether they mentioned availability of financing options; and if the salesperson remembered to acquire the customer’s contact information. Other things of consequence include offering test drives, pitches for their dealership against the competition, invitations to sit with the salesperson at a desk, and asking the customer how and why they’d be using their new vehicle.

With some of these vital variables in mind, concentrate on what might happen if a mystery shopper visited your dealership today. What would they say about the condition of your building? What about the pleasantness of your receptionist, or the competence and techniques of your salespeople? Oh, and by the way, today’s mystery shopper is not limited to a physical visit; they can also be an online mystery shopper, too, discovering how your dealership handles an e-lead.

We at JKR Automotive Advertising can always help you “get the phones ringing and the doors swinging” at your dealership (call Eric Tigner at 321-397-0777 today for more on that) … but what you do with customer activity is entirely up to you and your staff.

If you are not completely certain you’d get good reviews from a mystery shopper in one or more of the areas of interest discussed above, it’s time to make some improvements at your store. After all, a mystery shopper is nothing more than a microcosm of the Average Joe who’s on the lookout for a car.

Today’s automobile shopper has many choices, so if your dealership isn’t ahead of the industry averages in these categories, a lot of those Average Joes will go elsewhere to make their purchases.